Paul Nicholas Gogarty

I have spoken before about the broken system of needs assessment and delivery of services. Today, alongside this welcome motion, we see the Government making ambitious promises of faster assessments of need backed by new expert teams to streamline processes. It sounds like an early Christmas gift but time will tell whether it is just an empty promise or if it can actually be delivered. The Governm…

I note the Government's plan and in the limited time I want to focus on one aspect of it, namely, the incoherence in terms of infrastructure and facilities tied in alongside. To give an example, four years ago I proposed rezoning land beside Liffey Valley Shopping Centre in an industrial area right beside the M50. It would have made perfect logical sense to build housing right opposite a major sho…

Earlier on, I was talking about the fact that all newly development rezoned areas should be SDZs to try to tie in facilities and infrastructure. As regards taking away some community input by fast-tracking the process, I see the need to fast-track the process but we still have to have the input and we still have to allow it in some way. A lot of the times that An Bord Pleanála, now An Coimisiún Pl…

In the bigger picture, the NTA is not fit for purpose. We have heard about route 26 turning into the route 80 disaster that is affecting Palmerstown and especially Chapelizod. This may be reviewed, but I did a survey of 2,700 bus users who were all wary of it from day 1. I had a meeting with the chief executive but nothing was done at the time. The C2 bus spent so long down a temporary route that …

Deansrath Family Centre has been serving children and families in Clondalkin and beyond for more than 20 years. It is located in an area of ongoing socioeconomic disadvantage, characterised by high levels of unemployment and poverty, a lot of single-parent households and lower than average levels of education. The centre has evolved over time to cater for these needs and has expanded from solely p…

It is partially answered but the Departments still does not have the big picture because those behind the centre need funding to build a model of excellence in what will be a first of its kind family and early childhood centre. It will be the first whole-of-government strategy for babies, young children and their families, which is in the State's long-term programme. So far, their vision has been …

That was last year. It has probably gone up slightly.

Will the Minister of State ask the Minister to try to give me a written response on that?

We all personally know or locally are aware of whistleblowers. I know some myself. They are vital to protecting the public interest. These individuals call out corruption, waste, incompetence, bullying and abuse, including our distinguished guests in the Public Gallery. All too often, they pay a price for their transparency and honesty. The proposals before us are about changing that, going beyon…

I am not totally sold on the suggestion of a whistleblower reward scheme. I note it has worked to an extent in the United States, albeit under a different system and mindset from our own. We should certainly look at best practice and, in this context, I do not have a problem with a pilot and neither should the Government. We need to make investigations mandatory, punish obstruction and publish it,…

It used part of our heritage that if a woman opened her mouth, men were able to dunk her in the river. Thousands of jobs were created in rural areas because of Magdalen laundries. Do people want to keep that going? No, it is old school. We have learned our lesson. Greyhound racing is old school as well. I am opposing this motion on the basis that horse racing has serious issues and greyhound racin…

Myself and Deputy Peadar Tóibín have two minutes.

Yes.

The Deputy still has 40 seconds left.

Once again, we have the delays with the Courts and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025. Obviously, I welcome the temporary legislation. We spoke about it last May. I wish to focus on a couple of slightly left-of-centre things we could do alongside that legislation. In Rjukan, Norway, a mirror was put on the mountains because no sun shone on the town in the winter as a result of the moun…

I said it to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste and will say it to the Minister of State: it is about time we had a citizens' convention on immigration and asylum policy that would include a lot of people who are now Irish citizens who came from elsewhere for a better life. We need to have this because the debate is not a zero-sum game in terms of extreme left to right ideology. It is about trying to see …

I welcome the Victims of Sexual Violence Civil Protection Orders Bill 2025, which as others have said, aims to ensure a person subjected to sexual violence can be granted a civil protection order where an offence has been found to have been committed under criminal or common law. It is one step, as Deputy Carthy said, but it is an important step in adding to the legal protections available. It is …

79. Deputy Paul Nicholas Gogarty asked the Minister for Health the reason, after at least 15 meetings of the hearing care plan working group, and meetings by subgroups, a report has still not been issued and has been delayed by over six months into a projected timeline of quarter 1 of 2026; the way in which the scope of the work could have expanded way beyond initial expectations, as stated in res…

There have been at least 16 meetings of the hearing care plan working group and meetings of subgroups but a report still has not been issued and has now been delayed by over six months into a projected timeline of quarter 1 of next year. Will the Minister outline why the scope has expanded so much beyond initial expectations? Will she confirm a commencement date and a timeline for the related publ…

The Minister mentioned things like workforce planning and obviously there are other issues like paediatric screening, adult rehabilitation pathways and integration with primary care. Can the Minister give any timeline for the public consultation? Will it definitely be in quarter 1 of next year? This arose back in August of last year when the then Minister, Stephen Donnelly, was basically implement…

I know the Minister would be kept up to date on the reports of the subgroups and as she mentioned there have been 16 of them so far and there will be a few more before we get the final report. Can she focus in some way on getting to monitor the specialists? Is there any scope to bring in experts from Northern Ireland, Scotland or England as part of one of the subgroups or is this already happening…

We need a full public inquiry into Lucan swimming pool, at least to the point of the termination of the contract of the most recent contractor, McLoughlin. The history of this pool is an absolute mess. In the 1980s, Lucan Community Council collected moneys for a leisure centre. People paid towards this and were promised a pool in phase 2. Unfortunately, the project went into debt with a bank loan…

Now that the Minister of State has given the response, I can go into a little more of the nitty-gritty. The Minister of State mentioned the Covid issues and the restrictions on working practices, etc. The council was aware of this from an early stage but it took the word of the contractor. I have had stories told to me about electricians walking off site because they were not getting paid commensu…

If you did a search of the contributions I have made in this Chamber since my re-election in November of last year, you would find that Gaza, the West Bank and Palestine in general will come up top. That is a sadness for me. The relentless genocide in Gaza is continuing, as is the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, including settlers murdering innocent people in the past week. It is ongoing. It …

I like a bit of banter. The EPA's 2025 water quality report highlights that agricultural pressures, particularly from nitrogen and phosphorous - I will focus on nitrogen - from livestock manure, fertilisers, etc., remain the dominant threat to our rivers, lakes and especially our estuaries. The nitrates directive has been talked about for many years and Ireland's derogation is central to the find…